


The View of the World from a Hopeful Angle

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [7]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Changelings, Gen, Interspecies Friendship, the Fair Folk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 04:32:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19077559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: Friends are made, no strings attached.(It's almost unheard of, for a fairy.)





	The View of the World from a Hopeful Angle

**Author's Note:**

> There's more than a little mystery concerning Lento's Taking. There's also a lot of suspicion surrounding Alice Dorothy's involvement. Make of that as you will.

Elsewhere University is terrifying at night. It is only marginally less so in the day.

There are still changelings wandering the halls, bodies twisting and stretching and mutating into new, dangerous forms. Some of them, only some of them, are passable as human. Alice D. has made a habit of peering over the rim of her glasses, seeing them as the disguises rather than the beings underneath. She guesses, sometimes, at how comfortable they are in the human world.

Some changelings, like Calcifer or like those that do not use the forms of students Taken but who choose human designs of their own, look almost indistinguishable. There’s only the blurring of their edges, the places where their glamour wavers as it meets material. These are the ones for whom humanity is a true form on its own, who see their created bodies as their existence, as theirs. Their belief is warping; their belief makes them humanoid even through silver nitrate lenses. These changelings don’t quite make her sick, just set off a faint light-headedness and play tricks on her eyes. These changelings she can look at.

Others? Not so much.

This is precisely why, when Connor drags her to the cafeteria the day after, she has to take the glasses off.

Alice D. recognizes the table first, before she recognizes the being on it. It’s _her_ table, the one she’d always saved whenever it was empty. She’s spent hours sitting at it, whether with books piled up in front of her or masses of yarn to weave, talking all-too-cheerfully with Lento about what had happened during her day. And yes, she misses Lento, misses that nonchalance and that camaraderie and the friendship they’d built on debt, but that’s very much not the problem.

“Good morning!” Connor says, waving cheerfully towards someone she can only see in greens, in a thousand stinging nettles and the faint flash of a wide, razor-toothed mouth. D. whips off her glasses.

_This is a terrible idea_ , she thinks, though she doesn’t dare say it aloud in front of a Good Neighbour. She’s feeling a little faint, and this time it’s not from any magic. It’s the unadulterated worry for her careless idiot of a roommate.

The person who is not Lento looks up, and even without the clarity of her glasses D. can tell that she’s beautiful. There’s something about the smooth, pale curve of her neck, about her delicate, pointed features and about the assured tilt of her head, which lends a sort of beauty to anyone with it. Still, somehow, the changeling is less beautiful than Lento was. They don’t spark the same flushed attraction, the same admiration and desire and sickness.

There’s something curious about that. Curiouser and curiouser.

The changeling pales at the sight of Connor, at the sight of the iron and metal of them, and almost instinctually D. holds them back. They turn to her, confused and more than a little annoyed, but she taps her unpierced earlobe and they seem to get it. They remove a few of the piercings in a show of good will, slipping them into their pocket.

“Good morning,” the changeling greets them both, looking more than a little apprehensive about the two students approaching them from nowhere. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Yeah! The weather’s great.” Connor waves pleasantly, gesturing to the chair opposite the changeling. The latter is looking more and more like they’re about to book it. “I’m Connor. It’s nice to meet you. Can I sit down?”

“You may,” the changeling replies, brow furrowed in a frown. The voice, the wording- it’s wrong, all wrong. But aside from that, they’re testing something. A string of vines, thin and sprouting spike-like leaves, stretches out across the table towards Connor. It snaps almost instantly when it touches them. D. has to take a sharp breath to calm down. “It is nice to meet you as well, Connor.”

“How do you like it here at Elsewhere?” Connor asks, expression open and genuinely curious, genuinely honest. “There are a lot of customs to keep track of, really. It’s kind of stressful, trying to remember all of them. But you kind of get used to it in a few weeks! The teachers are pretty forgiving to us first-years, you know?”

“Yes, they are,” not-Lento replies, the faint note of confusion in their voice more than a little warranted at this point. Even D.’s a little confused about where Connor’s going with this. “Classes are… interesting. There are so many chords and notes to remember, and in so little time. And so many instruments, too.”

Is… is the changeling taking first-year classes? Is their schedule really that mixed-up? If they’re still learning chords and new instruments…

“I can’t imagine what that must be like. Instruments aren’t anywhere near my area of expertise.” The robotics major looks up at not-Lento through long bangs, taking in everything about them that must or must not look human. “Do you like the classes, though? I love taking mine, since they’re such a good learning opportunity. Technology’s fun. I haven’t ever been good with music, but the history of it is all fun to remember! The way songs are played and stuff like that has evolved so much over centuries!”

_What do you want?!_ Alice D. is sorely tempted to just drag her roommate out of here by their hair. Do they just want to be friends? She’s pretty sure this is too forward to be making any friends.

“You have a point there,” the changeling murmurs, tapping their fingers one by one on the table. D. counts only four taps. “The playing of musical instruments and the materials being used for making them has changed drastically as the world ages…”

D. tries to listen, she really does, but the worry spiking bright in her mind distracts her enough that she can’t. What is Connor doing? What are they _planning_? 

“Do sit down.” The words snap her out of her reverie quickly. Alice D. blinks, her attention turning to the two at the table. The person who is not Lento gestures towards a second empty seat. “You shouldn’t be standing when there is the option to sit.”

“I’m… I’m alright with standing.” D.’s voice doesn’t shake. It’s her body that must betray her hesitance, then. What else could it be?

“The seat is freely offered, freely given.” The changeling looks up at her, calculating, weighing, and D. feels her mind go faint. “There is no debt.”

She does not ask the Good Neighbour to repeat their promise twice more. She sits, letting the conversation play out around her. She hopes Connor knows what they are doing.

⋈

Connor absolutely does not know what they are doing.

“Do you even know what to address them by?” D. asks half-hysterically when they’re in the dorm room, made safe by the salt lines and the iron and the braided cord across the door. “Or have you just been calling them Not-Lento in your head, like I have?”

“They said for me to call them Lyric-Weaver,” Connor replies, slumped bonelessly on their bed. Their feet are dangling low enough that D. worries, since Wally’s making the rounds. “They’re so pretty, D., and so… cute. And really, really into the history of music, wow. It’s adorable.”

“Connor…”

“Oh! Shit. Should I not be talking about this in front of you?” The other student looks genuinely repentant, which D. is going to presume means they’re sorry for entirely the wrong reasons. “I mean, she looks exactly like your old roommate…”

“That’s not the problem.” The voice is too different for D. to mind. She’s always latched on a little harder to voices, rather than remembering or caring about the details of a person’s face or body. Lento’s voice was always beautiful, but the changeling wears it differently. Lento’s always had this underlying panic, this urgency. Lyric-Weaver’s does not. “The problem is… Would you like me to be blunt about the problem?”

“Go ahead. Hit me with your best shot.”

“You don’t know how to talk to Neighbours and your iron’s the only thing keeping you alive.”

There’s a distinct, heavy silence following that. D. wonders if it was, just maybe, a little too blunt.

“Neighbours. You called the fairies that last night, right?” Connor frowns. “Good Neighbours. Am I being too impolite or something?”

“You barged into their personal space and started rambling about the morning, then asked them about their classes, and then joined them on a twenty-minute rant about the history of sixteen musical instruments for no debt whatsoever. It’s quite possible that they have no idea what your motive is and they could very plausibly decide that you are a threat to be watched. It’s a very suspicious move, Connor.”

“I-” Connor pauses, thinking over their actions quickly before continuing. “I didn’t mean anything wrong. I just wanted to talk to them. Maybe get to know them. Hell, I- I kind of want to be their friend. You know?”

“I understand why, at least.” If she’d realized there was an entirely separate magic world in school that had been hidden from her, Alice D. would probably have done the same thing. It would have been after a little more research and deliberation, of course, and it would have been much less confident, but she would have done it. What better place to find magic than a magical Neighbour? “Just… be careful, Connor. A lot of the rules the Good Neighbours follow are different from our own. We may be rude to them or pledge ourselves to them without realizing. We might do something that makes them think we deserve to be hurt. And I doubt even your iron can protect you from that.”

“Where’s the scared nice guy who wanted everyone to get along now?” Connor asks teasingly. It’s not quite as nonchalant as it’d usually sound. At least they’re taking things seriously. “But seriously. You think Lyric-Weaver would hurt me?”

“I think they’d have a greater capacity to. And I think they’re much more likely to think you deserve a worse punishment than you do.” Greater likelihood. Greater capacity. Those are the ifs and maybes that Alice Dorothy deals in. She doesn’t quite feel comfortable insulting the Fair Folk as a whole. She doubts she ever will. “Be careful, Connor. No thank-yous. No sorries.”

“I will,” Connor promises, nodding solemnly. This time, Alice D. believes it.

⋈

Lyric-Weaver accosts her in the hallway a few days later, frowning and barely holding their illusion together even when Alice D. peers over the rim of her glasses. They’re taller now, more than a head taller, and their gaze is creeping like vines. Their brown braid is sprouting ferns. D. wonders if she should tell them.

“Good afternoon,” the changeling greets. It’s a statement on the tipping point of becoming a growl, really. That’s always a danger. She can hear the forcefully subdued edge to it all too well. “How has your day been, Alice Dorothy? How is your roommate?”

_What have you been doing? What are you making Connor do?_

“My day’s been alright. I appreciate you asking.” D. makes sure to keep her tone pleasant, light, and she shifts to a more open stance. It’s probably not enough to calm Lyric-Weaver down. She tries anyway. 

“Connor’s probably just getting out of shop class. It’ll be about an hour until their study hall period, so if you’d like to see them then-”

“No. I would much prefer to speak to you.” The edge has become dangerous again, sharp and pointed. The urgency, the weight in their voice, is worn different than Lento’s. It doesn’t quite feel as comfortable. “Were you not my roommate? It seems a shame that you left. I wonder; were you trying to leave because of me?”

… Alice D. isn’t quite sure what that means. Maybe something like, _were you trying to escape from Lento? Were you trying to avoid the consequences of your actions?_

She was, but those actions would probably be viewed as suspect. Cutting out debts means much more to a Good Neighbour than it does to a human. And if Lento explained it to them… well, Lento has always been more than a little _other_.

“I left because I’d finally worked up the courage to ask that I be placed in a dormitory that fit my gender. I’m not exactly a girl, see.” A half-truth, then. D. has never really liked lying. She’s never been good at making anyone believe them. “I apologize if you think I left because I was avoiding you.”

“I see. What is Connor doing, then?” The question seems oddly out of left field, a sudden change of subject that has to fit into the narrative. Alice D. takes a moment to analyse it, a moment to try and understand.

_If you are not using them to draw me out, then what are they doing? What do they want with me?_

“Presumably, they’re still over in class. Afterwards, though, I think they’d be happy if you went to meet them.” D. smiles softly at the thought. At least someone could find some happiness with this arrangement. “They said they’d like to be your friend.”

“My… friend?” The changeling pauses, more than a little disbelieving. “I doubt I could assist them with anything important. Especially with… their major.”

With the iron. With the metal. With something so antithetical to the _Else_.

“They don’t a trade with you. They don’t want a deal.” Alice D. thinks back to that conversation, to Connor’s admiration and their all-too-human nonchalance. “They only want to try and be your friend. No strings attached.”

“You speak for them?”

“I heard them say this. Not with this exact wording, but…” D. pauses, shifts away. “They said, a few nights ago, that they meant no harm. They just wanted this.”

“… I see.” Lyric-Weaver nods, their expression shuttering. “The curiosities of humanity. I see why you would like to study them.”

“Humans can get a little weird, yeah.” D. shrugs. “I like to think we’re weird in a nice way.”

Lyric-Weaver meets her eyes, their body morphing back into the almost normal form of Lento’s. In the periphery of her vision, she can see flowers sprouting from their leaves, all pink and yellow and blue. “Perhaps it is so.”

Lyric-Weaver leaves, sweeping away with the faint tinkle of bells, and Alice D. prays Connor will come out of this unscathed.

⋈

“Connor?”

Alice D. looks up first. The voice is familiar. Very, very familiar.

“Lyric-Weaver!” Connor’s face lights up, hopeful and almost excited. They’re still wearing their headband from class, the one keeping their bangs out of their face as they worked. They still smell like iron. It’s a wonder Lyric-Weaver even approached. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you at all today.”

“I was thinking on things,” Lyric-Weaver says vaguely, which is a pleasant way to say “I accosted your roommate in a hallway and am currently accosting you in a cafeteria”. “May I sit with you? We had an interesting class on the history of the flute this morning, and I went outside and whittled some bamboo accordingly and now I have a bamboo flute.”

“Really?! That sounds so cool! Do you think the flute sounds good? I’ve never even heard the bamboo ones. The only ones I’ve ever tried out were plastic. Go ahead, though! You can sit down…”

As the conversation plays out, Alice D. has to fight back a smile. Maybe this won’t turn out so bad after all.


End file.
